We love hearing from you, so here is your chance. Introduce yourself and tell us what makes you selfsufficient 'ish'. Go on don't be shy, we welcome one and all. You can also tell us how you heard about us if you like.

Hi from Northern Ireland! I’m so glad to find a forum like this ! I do not know one person with any similar interests as my husband and I lol I hope to chat to some here :)

I’ll start off with what led me here. Is it difficult (legally) to live self sufficiently in a Yurt in the UK or Ireland ? For years (since I’ve had children) this has been our dream. Most of what we have read/watched is about families everywhere but the UK we have three little boys and I would love to do this before they get any older. We’re an unschooling, somewhat self sufficient (what we can do with what we have) outdoorsy family stuck living in a residential area in a rental we can’t afford and do NOT like. Feel that if I don’t get the ball rolling soon it will never happen is there anyone on here in the UK or Ireland living like this ?? For the past year I’ve had my eyes peeled for cheap land but it all seems to have too many restrictions or is far too close to residential areas to stick a yurt on without being bothered by anyone.

Bubblefamily wrote:Is it difficult (legally) to live self sufficiently in a Yurt in the UK or Ireland ?

Bubblefamily wrote:For the past year I’ve had my eyes peeled for cheap land but it all seems to have too many restrictions or is far too close to residential areas to stick a yurt on without being bothered by anyone.

I don't know of any legal restrictions to living in a yurt as such. I think, as you've rightly pointed out, it has more to do with restrictions on land use. I don't know about Ireland, but I know of a few incidents where people have bought agricultural land and then successfully made the argument, to the planners, that they needed to live on the land to tend their business. You would have to convince them you would actually have a business of course. What type of dwelling they'd allow would probably be down to the preferences of each planning authority I'm afraid.

There are one or two old threads on here about it and loads of other stuff too, if you have a look round.

Maggie

Never doubt that you can change history. You already have. Marge Piercy

Bubblefamily wrote:Is it difficult (legally) to live self sufficiently in a Yurt in the UK or Ireland

I think it's still pretty relaxed on this side of the border.
There is a caravan on a small plot right by the road not far from here. It's been there, lived in, for a few years now, right opposite to a tourist spot on the Wild Atlantic Way, which shows how Cork council turns a blind eye to such things.
If you were to buy a rural plot with a derelict cottage, I'm sure you could live there in whatever you want, doing whatever you want (as long as it's not growing marijuana), for as long as you want. Then maybe renovate the cottage for holiday lets.
Unfortunately prices are now rising for that sort of property, with lots of Brits trying to escape Brexit.

Hi Bubblefamily - I am in Australia but this may be helpful as I have had a few battles with local governments about residences. Firstly, it is my experience that Council planning is negotiable and that a lot of the "rules" are really policy, guidelines and opinion, not law.
Secondly, the laws have flaws and gaps that can be used to your advantage.
Example 1 - Our house (c 1920's)is in a heritage preservation zone and along with this house came an older "detached" building(c 1890 ish) described as a stable. In fact it was the detached kitchen and domestic slave quarters of an older house next door. We wanted to renovate this and turn it into living space for guests etc. Part of the proposal added an ultramod extension at the front and an ensuite and kitchenette at the back. First Council hurdle, the land area was, legally, too small for a separate dwelling (watch this point), second Council hurdle was that the modern extension was not allowable under heritage listing, it had to match the existing style.
Solution 1 the restriction on heritage design as per local council instruction turned out to be male bovine excreta - in fact the State heritage office guidelines are clear in that they do not want reproduction buildings but preferred modern buildings that compliment the existing ones - they are happy with ultra mod if it fits in. Solution 2 the building and house are held in single ownership and because the smaller building lot is, legaly, too small to be used as separate dwelling then the conversion must be seen, legally, as part of the house. happy us, pissed off council.

The moral is to do your homework and not accept council opinions as law - I don't know if the same exists for you but here there are private licenced planners that can actually do all the work for you, shortcut procedure and push the stuff through. It cost me $A 700 but got everything through as per the original proposal and within 20 working days.

Hiya Bubble. I live in Southern Ireland, up near the border with Enniskillen. This is one of the poorest counties in the country and the least populated. I know lots of people living in caravans, off grid cottages, etc, it seems to attact people that want to live a slightly different lifestyle. Mostly, people keep themselves to themselves, I know lots of people living on land that they have no permission on as far as I know. If you go up some of the little roads all about the place, you can hide away quite nicely, the locals think most of the blow ins are a bit bonkers with their compost toilets and benders. The big downside here would be employment, because there is not much really, unless you have some kind of business you could run online, and of course you have to have a car because everything is so far away, our local shop is about 3 miles away or we drive up to Enniskillen for things we can't get here that we like. The whole place where I live is full of artists, film makers, bohemian types, hippies, new age travellers that came 25 years ago and stayed, we're all here. I like my home comforts, so I have a restored cottage, with electricity, oil heating, double glazing etc, no broadband here, just mobile stuff which is a bit variable and can send you demented when it doesn't work properly. We do grow a lot of food here and I have a micro business supplying salads, jams, cordials, crumbles, and anything else I can make and sell from my garden, but it doesn't make a fortune, but hey we don't have a mortgage. Car insurance and tax this side of the border a joke, think of a number and triple or quadruple it, no rubbish or recyling collection up this road and it is outsourced to a private collector so my friend lets us put stuff in her bin, we try not to generate much rubbish, oh and a two tier health system, if you earn money, you have to have health insurance or if you are poorer or on welfare you can get a medical card.

Sorry I’m terrible for not replying , sold my smart phone and got a good old button phone which means I actually have to sit down on a Computer now to do anything ! Lol Southern Ireland is appealing to us only because the land is cheaper /easier to come by, but I do worry about the changes, although with brexit Im worries about the changes here too! But healthcare is definitely something I consider because I have such small children. Everyone looks at us like we’ve two heads when we tell them how we’d like to live, very hard to come across like minded people where we are. The cost of land and finding it really is the big issue, we pay more than half my husbands pay check on rent , for something that really is no bigger than a yurt! With less benefits! Lol and a mortgage is not something I ever want to have. The less bills the better! I keep hearing horror stories of how people’s lands/ homesteads have been seized and with having children I worry that if we don’t do this right we risk losing a home while our children are young.

It's only the horror stories that make good reading in the press and sell papers/get listeners. You need to try before going all the way. If you can get a stay in a yurt you'll have more of an idea if it'll work. Caravans and small children don't mix in my experience but I'd not be without the experience.

Why not have a weekend out of season in a yurt, that would give you a good idea of what it would be like, or a week, why wouldn't you, there is a place called Pink Apple Orchard and they do camping in Celtic yurts

We've done quite a few 'off grid' get aways. Cottages mainly but we've stayed in a yurt twice and preferred it . We're going in a yurt holiday next month for ten days this time and were planning to stay in a yurt over the winter solstice this year too. Living in a small space wouldn't be an awfully big change for us, our house is about 75m2 (we've thought about this a lot so we measured our current living space lol) if you take away the useless unused space we probably live in less than that. It's a small pensioners bungalow so not exactly spacious lol but we're never inside. My kids are the climbing trees barefoot in the rain type lol so they don't have a lot of 'stuff' nor do we. Technology isn't something were bothered with either, yes we have phones and an old laptop for convenience but our TV broke months ago and we never bought another one lol no one misses it but we don't completely cut out technology, we all get in the one bed to watch the kids favourite movies on the laptop a few nights a week. I'm not worried about actually living in a yurt , yes it's something that takes a lot of thinking about but we've done that part. It's losing what we build up I'd be worried about

I think the best way forward is to approach your local planning department and just ask off the record what is involved in low impact living on a piece of land that you buy, it might be that you can buy a piece of ground with an old or ruined cottage on it which is then considered to be residential. I have always found the council very helpful in England when you go and have an informal chat with them, my neighbours live in a wooden chalet but they have an old cottage that they can't inhabit, they have no services either, our councils offices are about 35km away and we never get any trouble from them, I don't think they have the money to go bothering with people who aren't doing any harm. I will ask my friends up the mountains how they get on and are they worried about the council and see what their experiences have been.

My neighbour bought his 5 acres block about 6 years ago. It had a derelict 3 room cottage on it which he then demolished. He went to Council for a building permit for a new dwelling and was refused. If he had left the old one in place he could have legally "extended" it considerably and then demolished the "unwanted" portion of his new house. He now lives in an illegal dwelling made out of two shipping containers - Council can't touch him because a container is not a building and it does not have a laundry so it is not a dwelling.

Hi, Bubblefamily. I'm kind of an Ish wanna-be. I am not really successful at it, though. I have one thing in common with you: I was born in Northern Ireland. I live in Canada now.

For a while we lived on an island on the west coast of Canada where the climate was very similar to that of the British Isles: wet, rainy winters with not a lot of snow and moderate temperatures. We didn't live in a yurt, but our local meditation group had its regular meditation meetings in one. They were able to keep the temperature almost bearable with a wood stove (though it helped if you sat near the stove), but the big problem was moisture. Everything was damp all the time.

I hear you about wanting to be mortgage-free. I didn't achieve that immediately, but I did ultimately get rid of the mortgage. I did it by buying a house much smaller, older, and therefore cheaper than I could afford. I put the extra money - the money I would have spent on the mortgage if I had bought a "normal" house - into the morgage at every opportunity the bank let me. I ended up paying it off in less than half the normal time. The house was in an area that looked like it was starting to become trendy. When I sold it, I got four times what I paid for it. I haven't paid a penny in mortgages since.